Desire and reality
by Sanuraka
Summary: If you'll destroy the world to find some one. What wouldn't you do to get them back? What if no one took them what if it's their own mind that has them hostage how far would you go how deep would you dive
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the character or locations that are involved in the suicide squad movie or comics, nor do I own any of the DC universe characters or setting. All of this is the property of DC comics and its affiliates and Warner brothers.

A/N though I write all my stories for every reader I dedicate this little piece to shikacloud, for inspiring the notion that triggered this idea and also for being an awesome fan from the start.

PS This one is INTENSE, so make sure you got a chocolate ready at the end, you'll need it. Or your favorite comfort snack. Please try and imagine the Jared Leto and Margot Robbie characters talking through this, it's very intense if you do. This is definitely pre-suicide squad movie.

Desire and reality.

It was night.

The stars were out and Harley sat with her face pressed against the window, looking up at them all. You didn't get to see stars like this in Gotham, they were pretty.

Like little diamonds someone stuck onto the black sky.

The music was playing, something soothing, she didn't know the name of it. Some singer on the radio but she was glad he'd turned it on. It took away the quiet.

They hadn't spoken the whole trip, he'd just grabbed her out of bed that morning, dressed her, which she'd barely noticed and carried her downstairs and into the car.

He didn't tell her where they were going or why, just sat her down, buckled her up and got in.

They'd driven all day, she'd watched the sun move through the sky, then setting like a rainbow of colors bleeding into the darkness.

They'd stopped twice, both times at a gas station, it was just the two of them and she'd watched, curious as he got out, filled the tank, swiping Frost's credit card. She knew it was Frost's because all of the Joker's were either green or purple, his favorite colors.

If anyone noticed him, they were too scared to say anything or maybe they just didn't know who he was.

He looked, almost normal. The dark jeans, the button up shirt that was that dark green. He could almost have passed for a normal guy. He wasn't even wearing all the makeup.

She had no idea what was going on, she didn't have the strength to ask. Not today, not right now.

They didn't even stop to eat, he had food in the back seat. Having her reach back and grab it. Someone had packed enough food for the day, her favorites, his too.

J turned a corner and they got off the main road, the path was rocky and the Lamborghini jumped a little as he drove them to a out of the way cabin.

She frowned, the curiosity too much for her. She looked up and stared at the place. They'd never been here before, ever, she didn't even know where here was or what this place could be.

"Where are we?" she asked, the words sounding so thick.

"Home." he said quietly. His eyes locked on her for a moment before he pulled into the dirt drive way and stopped the car.

"Home?" she asked still confused. "Who's home?"

"Ours." He tells her, leaning in and kissing her deeply.

His lips feel so good, so, so good. For a moment she doesn't think about everything, doesn't think about what's happened, what they've lost or anything else. For one moment, she's herself again.

When he pulls away she can't help the small shudder that goes through her.

He places a finger on her lips and hushes her.

"No, not here." he tells her with a rough growl.

She nods, obeying his command and he gets out. Opening the trunk, she climbs out slowly. Finally looking down at her clothes.

She hadn't bothered to look once.

Jeans, her boots, one of her long sleeve shirts with a flower in the middle. Normal people clothes, that's what they call it.

Normal people wear.

She jerks her head up when he closes the trunk, he's got two bags on his back and a box held casually in one hand. He motions for her to follow and she does, silently climbing up the wood stairs behind him.

The front door isn't even locked.

It's made of glass, frosted in stain glass style. There is no design to it, no names, nothing but it's so beautiful, she can't help but stare at it for a second before she follows him inside.

When he turns on the light, she can't help but feel awed at everything. It's them, the furniture's all things both of them would like, the flashy colors he enjoys but the eclectic taste she has for unique pieces. She knows some of the art on the wall, it's from her old life. Even the picture one of her old friends did for her so very long ago.

There are photos, she can't see them all from here but someone went to the trouble of taking photos of them both, some of her on her own and framing them.

The living room is an open lay out and leads to the dining room. It's as spacious as the living room and Harley could almost imagine them entertaining here. Not his clients no, their inner circle.

He throws the bags down on the couch and comes back for her, taking a deep, determined breath before grabbing her by the wrist and leading her past the couches, into the dining room and through an archway.

The kitchen is on the other side of it and she can't help the tiny gasp that escapes her lips.

It's, exactly what she wanted.

Then it hits her, everything's exactly what she wanted. Everything's perfect, a blend of both of them, except for this room so far that is completely her own and the realization dawns on her.

Her eyes widen in surprise and he stares at her with an unreadable expression.

"You..." she can't put it into words, that he'd do this. For her, when he'd do nothing like it for anyone else. When no one else could get a thing from him without the demand of blood and a piece of their soul.

"Yes." He cuts her off with a rough voice, not wanting to discuss the intimate details of what he's done for her.

He sits her down at the smaller kitchen table, the chairs look more like stools and would only fit four people comfortably. More intimate, not meant for entertaining.

He goes to one of the cabinets and grabs two glasses, placing them on the table before walking to the fridge, revealing that it's fully stocked.

She watches as he grabs the grape soda.

When he comes back, he motions to the box before he takes a seat in front of her on another stool.

"Open."

She does, slowly, lifting the box's lid.

There's a bottle in it, a picture of a sunset on the label with a clear liquid inside. Alcohol.

She glances up at him in confusion. He doesn't drink, she doesn't really drink either.

"I don't understand." She confesses, looking back at the bottle.

He doesn't explain, only pours the grape soda into each glass, about half way, before taking the white rum from the box and filling the glasses the rest of the way.

"Puddin..." She protests, realizing what he's doing. "No, you don't..."

He stops her, replacing the cap on the bottle. Pushing it aside.

"Just drink." he orders and hands her the glass.

She looks down at the purple liquid, it fizzes, reacting to the alcohol. It's chilled in her hand from the soda and she licks her lips almost nervously.

He wants to drink, he never drinks.

"Go on." He insists, taking his own glass and downing the drink in almost one swing.

She follows suit, coughing hard when the strong burning taste hits the back of her throat. It's stronger than anything she's ever tasted before.

He urges her to drink it all, doing the same with his own, until there is only one small drop in both glasses.

It feels warm going down though, the burn subsiding enough to allow her to enjoy the sensation. It's tingling her insides.

He pours the grape soda and the rum in the glasses again, silently urging for her to drink with him. She doesn't hesitate this time, she downs it as quickly as he does and then places the cup on the table.

Her mouth buzzing, burning with carbonation and alcohol.

By the third drink, she's feeling it, whatever the stuff is, it's strong, very strong and it doesn't take long for it to work its magic on her. Her body relaxes, her mind uncoils from its tightly wound security blanket and she even manages a small smile as he gives her a fourth cup.

She's glad the stools have backs otherwise, she'd have fallen back with that swing.

He doesn't offer her a fifth glass. He pushes both drinks away and moves the glasses.

One arm resting on the table, the other laying flat on his leg.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks, her resistance to talk long gone, her resistance to keep her mouth from running away from her is now running behind it.

'I want to." He explains calmly. "You know me."

"I do, you don't just want to drink." She prods, pointing at the bottle. "You say drinking makes your brain go stupid."

"It does but I think you need stupid right now."

"Why? Because I'm a bigger mess than usual?" she laughs but it's bitter and it's hollow.

"No because stupid would be an improvement from what you are right now." He looks away when he tells her this and she laughs again.

"And what am I puddin? What is your Harley Quinn now?"

"She's the living dead and I want her back." He growls and even without the makeup, he's still so dangerous, so intimidating and beautiful.

"So you think getting me drunk is gonna bring me back?" She shakes her head in disbelief. "That's... dumb."

"The drink is just to loosen you up." he confesses, his eyes fixed back on her. "You're gonna tell me, everything."

"Everything, what do you mean everything?" she frowns at him, utterly confused and unable to comprehend anything.

"Everything is everything Harley, so go ahead, tell me everything."

"Everything of what?" she demands, throwing up her hands.

"Everything inside that pretty, deranged, brilliant little head of yours."

She shakes her head violently. "No, no, no. I'd rather you torture me again than that."

"Why?"

"Because it would hurt less." She admits and looks down at her hands.

He grabs her face with his hands and he's not gentle, she feels the heat in his hands and she looks up, pulling back the tears that want to fall so badly.

"Everything Harley, everything." he repeats and his eyes tell her that they won't leave, they won't move from this spot until she tells him everything.

"I didn't want much." she whispers so quietly, like a tiny little mouse. "I wasn't asking for that much was I?"

He doesn't answer her, just listens. Still holding her head up.

"It wasn't like I was asking for you to be normal, for me to be normal. I wasn't asking for that puddin, I wasn't asking for you to marry me, I know you wouldn't and I wasn't asking." she places her hands on his and closes her eyes, feeling the pain come forward. The treacherous alcohol doing its job well and opening all of those doors that she'd locked away over the last year.

"I just wanted... just that one thing." she bit her lip, stopping it from trembling. "Why wasn't I allowed to have that Pudding, why wasn't I allowed to have it? I know we're bad guys, I know we didn't deserve it but I wanted it. We always get what we want. So why did they take it away?"

"Who?" he gazes at her seriously.

"Them, fate, God, whoever you want. Why did they take my baby puddin? Why didn't they let me keep him?"

Joker doesn't answer her again.

"I would have been a good mother puddin, I would have been a damn good mother." Her voice raises and it echoes off the walls. "I would have done right by him puddin, I would have been good to him. Not like my mother was, not like yours. I know you don't remember yours but she had to have done something wrong, look at us... Look at us puddin. You don't turn out like us and come from normal families."

"Harley, normal is-"

"A setting on the dryer, I know that puddin. I don't want normal. I don't need for us to live in some suburb with white picket fences and a two story house. I didn't want that, I didn't want for you to be some guy who works and comes home to dinner. I didn't need a daycare. I didn't want those things, I didn't need them. I just wanted, one little thing. One little piece of normal. Just one."

He lets go of her face and just watches her as she spills herself out in front of him.

"I didn't want all that puddin, I just wanted JJ." A tear threatening to fall down but she forbids it from doing so, if she starts to cry. She might never stop.

"Why did they take him away from me?" she asks quietly. "I don't understand why, the doctor couldn't tell me why. He just didn't know. He thought it was the chemicals in my body, from when I jumped but it wasn't, it wasn't that because then how did we even make him? How did we make JJ if that was the problem?"

He's been thinking that himself but he doesn't tell her that, the sort of chemicals they both fell into, should have killed any chances of reproduction either of them had but still, she'd gotten pregnant. She'd made it two months in, hadn't she. So why?

"I would have been a good mom." she repeats her earlier statement. "I would have taken care of him puddin, made sure he was healthy. Made sure he was strong and smart. He would have had everything with us puddin, the best of everything."

She fell silent after that, for a long time and he didn't try to make her talk. She'd said more than he'd expected her to say, it was a start and he had it in him to be patient with her this time.

"I wanted him so badly puddin, so, so badly. To hold him in my arms, to hear his little cry, to watch him fall to sleep as I sang to him. We would have made a great kid."

"I believe that." he agreed, finally speaking.

"He would have been the best of us puddin. Ours, he was ours and they took him away from us. I want someone to be responsible puddin, I want someone to be at fault for it but it's my fault, oh god it's my fault."

Her hands came up to her face and the tears finally did come, she couldn't hold them back after that statement.

She cried loudly, every sob almost a wail. The words it's my fault repeated over and over again in between.

"It's my fault puddin, I wasn't careful enough. I didn't take care of him enough. He didn't want to be with us."

"That isn't true." he said calmly. Not daring to touch her, not wanting to break the moment.

There was intensity in his eyes, watching her break down in front of him. Intensity because this, for all of Harley's wild emotions was an emotional break down she didn't show anyone else.

It was about trust after all, it was about loyalty and he had no doubt of her loyalty towards him but he was curious of how she felt about trusting him, about his loyalty to her and his trust in her.

"Then why isn't he here with us puddin?" she demanded to know. "Other bad guys get to have them, bad guys who aren't us. Who don't have our resources, who are pathetic low lives with no aspirations. Fuck, my brother has kids and I only haven't shot him because he's not worth the bullet it'd take to kill him. People have children, people who are bad, evil people."

"We're evil." he states to her and she shakes her head.

"No puddin, not our evil, something worse. There are worse evils than us in the world. Those people who dare to declare themselves good, the ones who say they'd never do bad things. They're the real bad ones, the evil ones. We kill, we do terrible things but we're honest about it. They lie and cheat and deceive and then blame it all on us."

He can't argue that.

"JJ would have been everything for us, our legacy, our child. OUR CHILD." she screamed, pointing at him and then at herself. "Our baby, maybe the only one we had and maybe not but he would have been ours either way. Something we did together puddin, someone we made. For all the chaos and destruction we did, that we'll do in the future, he would have been the one thing we made. Setting us apart from everyone else, because our child would have been more than any of them, because he would have been proof of everything we are. Every life we take would have been more than weighed in on because he would have been that perfect. Our child, our son. Our... our legacy."

"Legacy." He repeated the word.

"Yes, our legacy puddin. He would have taken over one day, when we couldn't do it anymore. He would have been our immortality." She sobbed again, confessing her vision of their future. "I don't care that it sounds crazy, I don't give a fuck if you laugh at me but I truly believed that. JJ would have made Gotham bow down in a way neither of us could."

The sad thing was, it wasn't such a crazy idea. A genetic progeny of the Joker and Harley would have that potential, to be greater than his father, than his mother. To continue the show when they were long gone.

"He was gonna be so smart, so charming. He wasn't gonna have to go to a public school like I had to and I wasn't gonna send him to a private one either, so they could look down on him because of what we are. We would have taught him at home, he'd have gotten the best education at home. Because the school system In this country is a joke. A bad one. I know you wouldn't have approved but I'd want him to go to collage."

"Why?" he asks, curious now. Reaching over and pulling her up, his thumb wiping away a tear.

"Because that's where he'd practice, in collage. He'd take what we taught him and he'd spread his own wings, test out what he liked, what he wanted to be."

"And if he wanted to be like them? Then what?"

Harley shook her head vehemently. "He wouldn't want their lives. Because we'd have taught him how to see the truth of the world. So he would have gone in with his eyes open, learning the world the right way."

They sat there afterwards, for almost an hour and a half, just sitting there, not saying anything, not moving at all. She just stared at him and he stared at her.

He could give her anything else in the world but the one thing he couldn't do was bring him back, she knew it and she wasn't about to ask for it either.

It was strange to sit here with him, just having him stare at her, his eyes so fierce, intense.

"Do you even care?" she finally asks him. "Do you care that he's gone?"

His eyes narrow at the question and she doesn't expect an answer. "Yes."

"Why do you care?" she asks, half laughing, placing her hand on the table and smacking it hard. "Why do you fucking care, you're the joker, you don't care. You never care. You don't care about your son, you don't care about me!"

He moved so quickly she didn't have time to react.

He didn't stand up, he pulled her off the chair and suddenly she was in his lap, her legs spread so that she straddled him, her body pressed close to him with a hand on the back of her head.

"Never." He hissed. "Do not ever say that again Harley, do you understand me?"

"You don't." she whispered again, fresh tears somehow making there way down her cheeks. "You don't love me."

The miserable declaration is mournful, her heart broken words just that, broken.

 _ **Smack!**_

There is a sharp burning pain on her face.

It burns, doesn't even feel good. She starts to cry harder, her whole body shaking with the effort.

He pulls her back to look at him, he's furious, he's so very angry at her words and she sees the fire in his eyes.

"Harley, listen very carefully to me. Understood?" he snarls so quietly at her and she nods, still sobbing.

His breathing is harsh, his chest rising and falling with jagged motions but he says nothing.

He doesn't need to though, even as she cries, his body tells her everything she needs to know.

 _I love you, I hate that you're in this much pain, I love you, I love you. I won't say it but I love you._

She only starts crying louder, her hands shaking as she wraps them around her shoulders, lowering her head so that she falls into his chest.

She cries hysterically, leaving his shirt soaked in her tears.

"Never, ever say that again. I never want to hear that again." He growls, his voice still gravel, his tone still dangerously enraged. "Never."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." she sobs. "I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it. I just want you to hurt as much as I do."

And he does, she knows it. He just, can't say it. She just wants someone to blame, she wants someone other than herself to blame.

He hold her tightly in his arms, almost squeezing her too tight, until she's done crying. Until she's stopped, then there is nothing left.

She's cried every drop of pain out, she's cried until her eyes run dry and all she can think is that it feels like something's flying away from her. Like having a butterfly land on you then suddenly flutter on its merry way.

Joker pulls her head up, actually using the sleeve of his shirt to dry her face before kissing her. It's deep and hot, passionate and lined with violence and longing, spiced with hints of other feelings he can't express to her in words.

"You want someone to blame?" he asks her when they pull away breathlessly.

She nods her head. He grabs the bottle of rum and with one hand takes off the cap, putting the opening to his lips and taking a very large pulp of it. Slamming it down onto the table then grabbing her face again, targeting her lips and kissing her all over again. Sharing the unbearable burn of the alcohol.

It's so strong, it feels like her mouth is on fire. His tongue exploring every soft crevasse, the strength of her own tongue battling against him and the burn. The pain is shared, because he can feel pain and she knows it better than anyone. Not even the bat knows how much pain he can feel but she does, so she knows that this moment is felt by the both of them and she understands, even if he might not come to grips with it yet, even if he doesn't know how to feel it. He's in pain too.

He wants her to know that, its why they're here.

This place that is somewhere but nowhere, secluded from all the world. Even Batman would be hard pressed to just stumble upon it. It was safe, it was theirs and the only place where both of them could release it all.

No one would see here, no one would be able to point fingers and judge, like a performer who enjoys the privacy of a dressing room, he silently told her that this place was their safe haven.

Why Frost hadn't come, because he wanted her to himself, he needed her to himself and so did she.

He doesn't drink, not unless he's that stressed and has no intentions of being seen by the public eye. Not even the criminal public, he doesn't get high, all of those things are unwanted addictions.

He's come here and he drank with her, he drank with her to fog their minds and now he drank with her to feel the pain with her.

Neither of them laugh, this isn't the moment for it. That will come much later.

When he pulls away the second time, she sees the blisters already appearing, feeling them bubble on her own lips, from the bruising kiss, from the burning alcohol and she knows they'll go away in seconds but as she stares at him, watches as he speaks, there is a lifting of a great weight on her.

"I'll make a list of every, single person we can blame Harley. I think we can make a really, long list of people who can pay for what you've lost, for what... we've lost and I promise you honey. We'll get em all, every single last one."

She takes a very deep breath, holding it for a very long time before letting it go with a shudder. "Do you promise?"

"I swear it." he whispers and she believes him, utterly and completely, she truly believes him.

With a slow, grateful nod she reaches up and grasps his face in her hands. The tip of one of her fingers touching the small J on his face.

She kisses him again, expressing all her love, her gratitude, her pain and desire for revenge and she knows that no matter what, he'll do this. He'll find her people to blame, legitimate people who can mark their names to a death list.

He'll do this, because he loves her, because he'll do anything to get her back. Because he needs this as much as she does. Because it's her.

For her, always for her.

A/N Hey, I warned you guys, intense. So I hope you guys liked this little piece. It came to me while I was plotting out some stuff for monsters and performers and like I mentioned up top. Shikacloud made a comment in a review that inspired the scenario, so thank you honey, you were officially my muse on this one.. So hopefully they weren't out of character, I really was trying to keep them both in that character but still be able to pull this off. Let me know what you guys think of it.

So here is the thing, where would two people who can't afford to show vulnerability go to completely get lost, to let go of any human emotions that could be in theory used against them? Well, considering all the money they have, it occurred to me that they could easily own property in a lot of places. Even overseas. Maybe not in their names but still, theirs. So the idea came to have Joker take Harley somewhere remote, just them. A place that was for them and only them. Maybe he even had this place in mind when she got pregnant. Cause well, a criminal elite like him isn't stupid enough to believe that his enemies, the batman included wouldn't be one not to use his child against him.

Anyway, maybe I'm totally off the mark, let me know either way. So I love you guys so much. I hope you enjoy this, looks like it's more than likely gonna be a one shot unless someone else throws an idea my way but consider it a really purple blue, pink and green frosted cupcake. Hmm, now I want one.

Love you guys and I'll see ya later!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N If I must be honest with all of you, here it is. I have the honor of living in two worlds. I am a writer and I am a fan. Those two things are not exclusive mind you but I get just as excited as all of you do when my favorite authors or a new writer posts a chapter or new story. I'm heartbroken when the chapters over and I'm constantly checking the updates to see if they've posted again. I review every story I like because in the end, I'm a writer too and I won't be a hypocrite and beg for reviews only to not leave one myself. That said, I dedicate this one shot to every writer here, the ones who have real lives that get in the way, the ones who have to find that perfect moment to write such chaotic characters and somehow, make them feel real. But I also dedicate this to every fan, because without you, a writer isn't much of anything. We feed on your excitement, your feelings, what you say and what you feel is what makes writing worth it.

This story is based on an idea steamed from Chaos. For those who read it, you all know that J's initial plan for Harley was to give her a year as a criminal and then kill her if she failed to live up to his standard. This one shot is AU from the point where he leaves her in her apartment in chapter 19. It's almost a year since Harley's torture in Arkham.

The ace of hearts.

Party, what a word, what a very defining word.

Doesn't matter where you hear it, everyone knows what it means. Someone yells party and images come flooding of a great time, fun, drinks, celebration, music.

Yet the word can mean so much more, a party doesn't just have to be about celebrating.

It can mean something, very different.

A party as in a group, a faction.

There is something funny about it then, that a party of very special guests are at a party, to celebrate absolutely nothing at all.

A party, celebrating a party.

Gods he must be bored if he's thinking like that.

Joker looked down at the whiskey the waitress brought him and contemplates actually downing it, not for the first time tonight he's considering his options, he's wondering why the hell he came in the first place.

It isn't' like the place is bad, the music's good, the food is the best quality and the entertainment, well those girls do dance, quite spectacularly but its all so ordinary, so, ostentatious. Which is saying a lot considering it's him who's thinking it.

It's flashy but not entertaining, it's glamour but no style.

No one asked him to plan this little shindig, he'd have done a far better job.

"Frosty why did we come again?" He asked, leaning back to talk to his second, Frost looked relaxed as he always did. Leaned back in his chair, sipping on his own drink, watching the room with an almost bored expression.

"Because the invitation said not to come." he said with a slight shrug.

Ah, of course. He was invited with the specifics of not bothering to come along and of course, he had to attend.

"If you wanna go boss, we can. I don't think it's gonna get much better." Frost admitted with that calm tone of his. "I think we could leave the boys and they'd find their own way home."

"True." He took another glance around the room, some of his men were busy dancing with some random girls, others were playing cards at the tables with other henchmen. Probably trading stories, finding out who was getting paid more.

He was here because he wasn't supposed to be here, ironically.

He had to be invited, the hosts had no choice, if they hadn't invited him, they'd be offending the prince of Crime and that just wasn't something you did, only fools planned this sort of event and left out the Joker.

Didn't mean he was wanted here, many respected him, fewer liked him but all of them feared him.

They wanted his business, they wanted his money and they would always prefer to let him take the fall, to face the bat, better he go to Arkham than they go to Blackgate.

That was the sick part, the sad little joke. He always ended up back in Arkham, that little hellhole somehow always pulled him back in.

Hadn't they figured it out yet?

Hadn't they learned from the _last_ time?

The last time...

Well, at least last time it'd been interesting, entertaining in a way his other trips there hadn't been.

 _More fun than this._ He thought to himself as he scanned the room.

He suppressed the name that wanted to bubble up to the surface, he refused to speak the name, he refused to think of...

Damn it!

He growled to himself at the thought of her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her...HER!

The biggest mistake of his existence was that woman. The biggest mistake.

His most prized masterpiece.

That frustrating, beautiful, brilliant creature was the bane of his mind.

He hadn't seen or heard from her in a very long time, almost a year and her time was almost up. The anniversary of her creation was close at hand, less than a week from now, she'd be a year old and she'd finally left him alone.

His desperate attempts to ignore her had finally paid off but still she haunted his twisted mind.

 _You sleep with a girl once and she breaks the shreds of sanity you've got left._

He couldn't get the taste of her out of his mouth, the soft smooth feel of her skin still plagued his fingers and he couldn't get her voice out of his ears.

Whenever he found a moment of silence he heard her moans, her gasps and the sound of her speaking.

If that wasn't enough, he missed her!

J rolled his head back and gripped the glass in his hands, drinking this whiskey was definitely sounding like a good idea.

It wouldn't be so infuriating if it was just the sex he missed, that could be understandable. You didn't sleep with a sex goddess and expect to find a replacement but it was something else he wanted.

HE WAS BORED!

She kept him from being bored.

He missed her mind, her curiosity and wit.

God he was pathetic, when had that happened? When had he started to miss her?

 _Oh, the moment you walked away from her in that treatment room._

 _When you kissed her in her apartment and told her not to come looking for you._

 _When you were inside of her, feeling how fucking good she felt and-_

 _Shut up._

"You say something boss?" Frost asked carefully.

He hadn't realized he'd said the last thing out loud.

"Yeah Johnny boy, just fine." He sneered. _For a man who's got an obsession he can't scratch._

 _Admit it, you're lonely, you can't replace her because there is no other Harley Quinn, you saw that, you knew it back then and you know it now. Sad, pathetic thing is, you actually think that having her in your life would make you weaker, that having her with you, by your side as your... Queen, it would somehow make you less of the super villain you are. That's very sad J, cause it's quite the opposite._

 _Shut up._

He was sick of his mind, not voices but his own workings. How he analyzed the world, how he saw the details, the colors, the secret things that no one else could see.

It meant being able to see his flaws long before they happened, it's what made him so good at what he did.

It also made it incredibly hard to ignore his obsessions.

His mind worked in such a complicated, unpredictable way he found himself lost for days in something, it was so easy to find the edges of a hole and reach down into it, see what lurked inside of it, get lost, become completely engulfed, until he was so hungry he might pass out, until Frost would come find him, make sure he hadn't just stopped breathing.

It was like, looking into the universe and discovering it piece by piece.

Except, for the past year, his ongoing search was not through the chaos of the universe, or the workings of Gotham and it's crime.

His obsession, his only obsession sad to say was the blonde psychiatrist who now went by the name Harley Quinn.

The youngest of his creations and, spitefully so, his most successful.

 _Why spiteful, it's what you wanted, for her to prove the bat wrong, to be better than his own protege, to prove that the little bird couldn't compare._

 _He couldn't._

He supposed the problem was, she was doing too well for herself, too quickly.

He'd expected more of a struggle, he'd expected her to be arrested at least once in the last year but she'd managed to keep herself under the radar, worse, she was impossible to find.

She'd moved out of her apartment, she'd quit her job at Arkham, her family had no idea where she was either.

No one knew where Harley Quinn was.

 _Why did you listen to me you looney toon?_ He thought bitterly.

The DJ stopped playing and the band picked up, a slow bass started, jazz music. Strange, not this crowds style.

He perked up, there was something, intriguing about that sort of music, could be so chaotic and yet so in control.

The sound of whistles and cheers came as a young red head got on stage, some nightclub singer with a body to match, her hair curled to the side and a tight black dress that accentuated every feminine curve.

Pretty.

She started to sing, an old song, one everyone, even the younger criminals would have known.

Fever.

Her voice was sultry, seductive and as she sang, he felt himself melt to the sound of the music, finally something to entertain him.

"Boss." Frost said, placing a hand on his arm.

Frost knew better than to touch him without reason, so J snapped his head up instantly. His second wouldn't risk getting his hand cut off unless it was important.

"What?" He hissed, staring at him.

The man who so normally seemed passive, unfazed by violence and the strangeness of his boss, looked... stunned?

Joker turned in the direction Frost was staring and instantly, he understood why.

Of course it had to be FEVER.

Harley was escorted from the car by her two guards, she handed her invitation to the front desk and walked towards the ballroom doors.

She was there to make a scene, she was there to be seen and hopefully eyed.

"Is my entertainment here yet?" She asked one of the guards.

She'd enlisted a very special guest tonight, a jazz club singer who was very popular, had a voice like an angel and could capture a room in seconds. She'd paid a lot of money for the girl to show up today.

"Yes Miss Quinn, she's already inside getting ready."

"Good." Harley grinned, showing off her white teeth. "Taylor honey, did you check if he's here?"

"Oh trust me Harls, he's here." the ex guard smirked.

Taylor was one of Harley's prized trophies, the ex rogue gallery guard had become one of her first henchmen and one of her most loyal. He was military deadly, smart and she'd tapped into that dark spark inside of him. What a beautiful creature he was and had a love for a good heist.

Harley had converted four of the guards in Arkham to join her little faction, wasn't as hard as people might think, they were already on that edge, she was after all a therapist and looking into their darkest little secrets wasn't impossible.

Still out of the four, Taylor was her favorite, he'd been challenging, he'd fought so hard to keep himself together, not to fall over that brink but in the end she'd won over his mind and she'd pushed him into the darkness.

And he'd been so sarcastic to her the first time they'd met. Figures he'd become her second in command.

"You know, seems a bit of an overdo though Harls, all to get to him."

"Well this isn't about getting to him baby." She said with a smirk. "This is about getting with him."

Taylor smirked back but shifted his shoulder in that way he did when he got nervous. "Does that mean I'm out of a job if you two..."

"Nope, you'll always have a job with me Taylor, you're my favorite pet."

"You know..." He stopped and grinned at her in a way that might have been questionably seductive but she knew he wasn't into her like that, she'd damaged his mind too much for him to look at her as anything more than his boss, his owner. "If anyone else called me that, I'd probably break their necks but for you boss..."

"Love you too Tay-tay." she cupped his face and planted a kiss on his cheek.

The truth was, she had no interest in him either. She had no interest in any of her boys or the few girls she had. She had eyes only for one man and the last year had been the hardest in her life.

It'd been nearly impossible to stay away from him.

At one point it got so bad, the voices in her head screaming so loud that Taylor who'd been given very specific instructions to not let her go looking for Joker, had to sedate her.

He earned himself a raise and a punch to the face for that.

"Everyone's waiting inside for you." Ricky, her other guard said opening the door, the sound of the bass filling their ears. "They got here early like you asked."

"Well, they deserve to have some fun too don't cha boys?" she grinned and fluffed her hair a little more.

"You look perfect, he'd be blind to say no." Taylor teased. Then he paused. "Considering how smitten he was back in Arkham, I'm surprised he wasn't looking before."

"Honey, I suggest you keep your tongue in your mouth tonight, you might find it missing if you can't keep your snark to yourself." Harley purred in a subtle teasing threat. "And it might not even be me who cuts it out."

He mimicked zipping his lips, locking it and throwing away the keys.

"Good boy."

The sound of the music grew and Harley grinned, excellent timing.

She stepped into the party as her singer moved and sang on the stage.

 _Worth every penny._

 _Where is he?_

 _Don't look desperate. Tonight is about showing off._

Harley snaked her arms around Taylor and Ricky and they walked her inside.

The woman on stage could only be outdone by the woman who walked into the party.

The room seemed to stop, their eyes drawn to the stunning beauty that had graced them with her presence.

They all knew her, they all knew her name but so few had met her in person.

Even seasoned villains had to stare in awe of the upstart.

Of course she was gorgeous but it wasn't just that, there was an aura about her, a power surrounding her.

A myth.

Created by the Joker, tortured over and over again and somehow still surviving, being burned by pain and lightning and still coming out on top, wickedly intelligent and stunningly mad.

The Harlequin, the princess.

She wore a fur coat that was dyed a rich blue, cost easily in the thirty thousand range, a pair of silver stiletto heels that almost looked like glass, accented by two ankle bracelets that had small, delicate bells on them, so when she walked there was the softest, beautiful chiming music to accompany her. Yet these things were nothing compared to her dress. A dark silver that clung to her body like a glove, so high up her thighs it should have been indecent but somehow, she pulled it off. The skirt flared out a little, so that as she rolled her hips, it rippled along with her. The cut a heart shape that accentuated her cleavage, off the shoulders, not that anyone would have known the thing had sleeves right now.

Alexandrite jewelry all over, her bracelets, her earrings, the large expensive rings on her fingers and the beautiful, glimmering choker that sat on the hollow of her throat.

One of her girls had entertained herself in the afternoon curling her hair, creating soft wavy ringlets that bounced and bobbed with her head, strands of blonde dyed blue to match her coat, rich and vibrant.

Harley hadn't even had to do her own makeup, another of her girls had begged all week to do it and she'd accepted. Her lips a dark cherry red, her eyes laced with silver and iridescent shadow, her lashes curled up and dark lined.

Harley was dressed to kill.

Her target, only one man.

This was a woman no man should resist and that no man in the room could, other than her boys who knew one inevitable truth.

Harley Quinn wanted the Joker and no one else.

He stared on at the woman who couldn't be Harley, it couldn't be. He'd seen Harley dressed up, he'd seen her look her best and this wasn't her.

Yet it was, her best a few months ago had been pennies compared to the goddess who was sauntering in.

Wait, he knew that man on her right. He wouldn't forget any of his Arkham guards and he was damn sure that was one of them.

He was done up too. A full three piece suit, dark and pristine, made her stand out more.

He walked alongside her like a soldier and it occurred to him that Harley had somehow recruited him as one of her...

Wait, Harley had henchmen?

 _Busy, she's been busy._

Her escorts lead her to a table where a group were waiting for her. Two women come up to her and take Harley from the men who step back, one of them comes up behind her and removes the coat, handing it over to a young man who holds it like it's a live explosive. The other woman is adjusting Harley's hair and making sure her dress looks... perfect.

The Arkham guard came up to her again and whispered in her ear but Harley shook her head and he nodded.

The song finished and the spell seemed to break, everyone going back to their own entertainment as the man held his arm out and took Harley out onto the dance floor.

"Did he see me?"

"Oh yeah, minute you walked in. You know I've known him for months and never seen him convulse facially like that before." Taylor said with a grin.

The singer had started singing a new song, something slow, intimate. Easily misinterpreted by the closeness of their dancing but it was about trust, not sex.

"Is he watching now?"

"Yep."

"And?"

"Oh, he wants to kill me." Taylor grinned again as Harley laughed, flipping her hair flirtatiously.

"Don't worry honey, I won't let him kill my favorite puppy."

"You know I hate it when you call me that." He mumbled.

"Oh, why you think I do it?" she teased.

Taylor twirled her, it looked so smooth, so flawless. Harley wondered if anyone outside her people knew that just to get him to dance like this it'd taken three months of painful practice.

"Haven't stepped on me once Tay-Tay. Good boy."

"Well, maybe old dogs can learn new tricks boss."

Joker watched them dance, he saw nothing else but the pair, the rest of the room disappearing.

"Boss?" Frost asked, glancing from the clown to the dance floor.

"Stop talking Johnny." He growled back and rose from his chair. Suddenly the party didn't seem so boring.

"He's coming."

"Good." Harley grinned. "Taylor, how bout you take the night off?"

"Sure?""

"Oh, I'm pretty sure, I think I'll have a good escort."

"Fair enough, have fun." He turned her once more, sending her in the direction of the Joker, so that when she stopped, she was faced right in front of him.

J saw the guard nod with a smile before he left the dance floor. Returning to the table, without a seconds hesitation he caught Harley in his arms and allowed her to wrap her arm around is neck, clasping the other hand in his as he snaked his free arm around her waist.

"Hi puddin'." she said cheerfully as he started moving them to the melody of the music. "Long time no see."

"Harley." He said, as... casually as he could muster.

"Didn't think you'd be seen at these sorts of things." She said lightly. "Figured it was... beneath you."

"Had to make an appearance." he purred, pulling her close. "Wasn't expecting you here at all."

"What, you think I'm not big enough in Gotham to deserve an invitation Daddy?" she whispered with a mix of seduction and threat. "Well guess what, your baby girl's just fine."

"So I've heard." He looked up to where Taylor was sitting with one of the young women in his lap, grinning and kissing on her neck. "When you get him?"

"Oh, you remember him?" Harley giggled. "Got him a month after you, dumped me. Actually if you end up back in Arkham, you're gonna find that a few of your old friends don't work there anymore. They found, better employment. Better benefits and all that."

He had to admit, not a bad move. Smart.

There was a silence between them though it wasn't awkward. Tense, burning and threatening yes but not awkward.

They didn't speak simply because there was no need to, sentimentality wasn't his style and giving up wasn't hers. She looked beautiful tonight, she knew it, he didn't need to comment on it like some idiot on a first date. She wanted him, she missed him and her devotion was still all his, even though she had her own business. All those things didn't need to be spoken.

What needed to be said, was far... more personal.

"I think about you." She whispered as he spun her. "Every night."

"Hmm, like saying your prayers."

"You could call it that." She smiled and a possessive knot stuck itself in his stomach, that smile, he wanted it for him.

"So you came to show off hmm, thought you'd learned your lesson about that."

"Well considering my lesson for showing off to you was a whole weekend of mind blowing unforgettable sex, I think the message may have gotten... lost."

"Oh and you think I'm just gonna jump back into bed with you Harley? Wasn't that unforgettable." he teased but by now, they both felt the heat, the tendrils of want that seemed to engulf them both up like a spiderweb.

"I'm amazed you got that out with a straight face puddin." She said, not hiding her lust or her amusement. "You should become a comedian, you'd be great."

"Funny princess." he leaned in, letting his breath trace along the side of her neck, relishing the remembered feel of her skin. "You should be careful, you might bite off more than you can chew."

"Hmm, didn't you tell me to be careful last time honey?" She breathed and he spun her around him before pulling her close.

"That was then."

"And this is now." She grinned. "Telling me ya still fighting the inevitable?"

"I decide what's inevitable Harley, not you."

"Whatever you say daddy."

He growled in approval.

"If only you were so compliant every time we spoke."

"You wouldn't like that puddin'. I'd be a hell of a lot less fun if I was the sweet, trained, obedient little woman. You like a little fight in your girl."

She wasn't wrong there. "who said you were my girl?"

"You did." She giggled. "Pressing her whole body against him. "With that dirty look you just gave that guy who was trying to look at me."

He gripped her waist and Harley gasped at the intense pain he caused, her eyes rolled back with that odd sensation that wasn't quite pain and not quite pleasure. "I don't like people playing with my toys."

"Want me to be your toy puddin?" she gasped eagerly. "Prove it."

"I don't have to prove anything little girl. I made you, I can unmake you just as easily."

He could want her, he could miss her but there was no god on this earth that would make him submit to her, either she submitted to him or nothing.

"It's my birthday next week." she whispered in his ear. "You didn't forget that did you daddy?"

How could he forget that date? The day he'd taken Harleen Quinzel and tore into her mind, left her there, laying on the ground slipping away into the depths of her own mind and giving birth to something, incredibly unpredictable.

Something beautiful, dark and gloriously chaotic.

"You actually think I'd forget your birthday pumpkin pie, I'm heart broken." He whispered back, chuckling at the way she pressed into him, how easily she still melted into him.

"Well, I'm having a big party for it, can I count you on the guest list?" she said in a sweet, hopeful but her undertones warned him that her expectation was for him to show up. "I'd be ever so hurt if you said you wouldn't come and celebrate with me."

"Well, maybe I'll be busy that day." He teased, feeling her grip on his shoulders tighten. "You know, I am a busy man Harley."

"Too busy to come to my birthday?" She pouted.

The song change again,something a little faster, many had stopped to watch the cat and mouse game. The prince of Gotham and the princess, creation and artist. A tug of wills that was hard to deny.

Many of the patrons of the party watched, just assuming it was nothing more than dancing but... those who could call themselves the elite, Gotham's finest criminals. They saw far deeper into it.

Frost and Taylor watched, knowing the game that was being played, both men glancing at the other, knowing that their paths would from now on cross multiple times as their masters interacted and depending on this moment, would depend on whether those meetings were, pleasant or something more... violent.

This situation was both messy and delicate all wrapped up in a waiting bomb and it was impossible to know who owned the trigger. Maybe Joker owned it unconditionally once but in the past few months, the tides had changed and his men had noticed.

Women threw themselves at him and he ignored them as if they were leaves falling from trees, beautiful submissive girls who would give their left arm to spend even an hour in his company, to please him but they just, did nothing for him.

The only entertainment Frost knew still caught J's attention was the bat and even that obsession had... become strained.

It was like he'd lost the flavor for the hunt, for the attack.

Making money wasn't impossible, even with the Joker like that but things, had become uneasy. He was more trigger happy, easily agitated and when he thought that no one was looking, Frost more than once caught him looking out the window of the car or towards the entrance of the club. As if he was hoping to catch a glimpse of the blonde who now danced with him.

Harley wasn't much better, the woman was unpredictable on a good day, she needed to make money, she wasn't in a position to just let things go and she did her job but, Taylor saw the strain of her distance far more than Frost saw it in Joker. She didn't smile when she thought of him, her eyes went glassy, the mist of tears would come and go. Fits where he had to peel her off the ground and have the girls put her to bed.

It was the job, you didn't work for these extreme powers and expect things to run normal.

Still one thing no one could deny, they looked good together.

Should anyone hope that they got together tonight? No, it shouldn't be something anyone should desire because it would mean something none of them could handle, it meant the rise of a new dynasty, of an unshakable empire that would be born from the two of them.

They would no longer be Prince and Princess of opposing kingdoms, they would be King and Queen of Gotham.

A/N so something happened today that was, well impactful for me. I got my first real negative comments. The perso was decent enough to PM it my way, didn't publicly rip me, actually I can't really call it a rip. Was more of a very personal opinion which I'm very okay with to be quite honest. The thing about being a writer, whether it's fanfiction or it's original work is you're never ever going to please everyone. You're not meant to if I'm honest. Everyone likes different things and has different expectations. Even me. It's why I love the concept of AU, it gives yout he chance as a writer to delve into multiple versions of a story. Did it affect me, course 'm human and I do dedicate a lot of time and effort to these stories. Will it stop me from wriitign whatever the hell I feel like? Nope, you guys don't have to worry botu that. I'm not that mellow dramatic. I write these stories, for each and every one of you. I write them because I get an idea in my head and I say, hmm would this be possible with these characters? If I put them in this situation, how and what would they do.

In one of my original stories, I wrote a very explicid scene of a rape. Int he scene, the character had a choice to make, fall to pieces or do her best to salvage the situation and her own emotional sanity. Int he end, the character didn't break. I actually got critizised by someone who'd never, ever had that experience happent o them. Funny part, I didn't have to chew them out. A whole bunch of people who had beent hrough that did it for me.

As a writer, you write with your heart, you write with your soul and you hope that it's good enough. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You're always gonna find someone who just doesn't get the joke.

So I say this to every writer, whether you've got the skill or you just do it for fun. Don't give up, don't stop. It may not work but you keep getting better, you keep getting wiser with your words.

I will be writing another one shot, the next one is funny enoug gonna be based on NORMAL, so 'makes come here motion with hand." so to every hater who's never been able to just, let it go, to every person who just refused to get the joke. Please enjoy, this is a very unpredictable ride and we dont' stop for you to throw up.

PS I'm leaving this story where it is for now, since I've realized it has potential to be it's own arc, i'll let it sit for a little while and see what you guys think. Also. This weekend other stories will be updated. I have been terribly sick for the last two weeks, Strep caught me so hard and then I ended up with a serious infection that left me almost dead for like three days. All I wanted to do was sleep. I'm good though, I'm better though. Fever's gone and I'm back in writing mode. So I'm onna be writing through tonight and tomorrow. Makign sure I'm ready to update Chaos, Monsters and performers and hopefully, crossing fingers life and estruction.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N Okay so before we even get started, for anyone who is confused. Each chapter is a one shot, they are not related to each other in the least. I'm guilty of having plot ideas allt he time and I'm writing them here and seeing how you guys like or dislike the ideas. Last chapter was a potential arc for later, thisone shot is related to Life and Destruction, for those who read it. It's the reaction to Eve's birth from J's pov and Frost's.

Hope you guys enjoy this, I had a lot of fun writing it.

The root of all things.

Jonny sat in the car, looking up at the expensive material of the sports car, wishing he was anywhere else, that he was someone else.

He'd had moments like this, bad ones when he looked back on his life and wondered what the hell he was doing.

It didn't happen often, he was comfortable with his life, he liked it, he had no regrets. He was the second in command of one of the most powerful factions in Gotham city, he ran it whenever the Joker was absent and following that man through hell and back, he'd seen so many things.

Terrible things that numbed you, horrific things that should give you nightmares and amazing, impossible things too.

The man was a magician, the man was something else, something more than just a man and he'd had the privilege to be at his side. To be considered the trusted one, the one the Joker let into some of his secrets but right now, all he wanted was to be some normal guy in an apartment heading home from work to a nice home cooked meal with his wife.

Not staring at the ceiling of his boss's second best car wishing he didn't exist.

This shouldn't be happening but it was.

Wasn't it bad enough that the boss's girl was gone?

Wasn't it hard enough that Harley, who'd strangely enough been the stability of the Joker's mind was somewhere unknown and that no one, no fucking one knew where to find her?

No bribe, no threat and no torture gave fruit to answers but today...

He looked down at the large yellow envelope he'd received to the PO box he kept, Shelly had called him, she'd said someone sent something for him.

She'd sounded shaken up, she'd sounded like she'd been crying.

Why was she crying?

Why hadn't she come home to hand it to him, why did she insist on meeting at the park?

He'd never seen her so... spooked and she was married to him, she existed in their world and she'd seen things too and somehow she'd stayed at his side but this was... different.

The envelope had been addressed to her, not him but when he opened it and saw its content, he knew exactly why it'd been done that way. The security of it, the cunning, the genius.

Shelly might be a Frost but on paper she was still under her maiden name, very few people knew that, very few people even knew that Shelly was more than his girl, that she was his wife.

One person did know, other than his boss.

Harley.

Harley's handwriting was on that envelope, Shelly's names so delicately written out, the address of the PO box, the return address was the club, again written in Harley's handwriting and Frost for five glorious seconds thought that she'd made contact, that she was writing to tell the Joker that she was alright, that she was somewhere safe and had just been on her own for the last eight months. But Shelly's expression killed that hope.

The Joker was much better angry than whatever state he was in now, whatever emotion he felt at the moment was, unbearable to watch.

" _Open it."_ Shelly had said with a shaky voice. _"There is something in there for you."_

For a moment he'd feared the worst, that Harley was declaring she was done with J and that this was her way of finally dumping him, that she was leaving it to Frost to tell him and clean up the damage.

It'd be something she'd do, it'd be something she'd plan out, make them all stress out for almost a year and then drop the bomb.

Oh, she'd dropped a bomb alright but it hadn't been the one he'd been expecting.

"You have to tell him." Shelly whispered from the passenger seat, she turned to look at him. "You can't keep this to yourself."

They'd parked over an hour ago and he'd been sitting here ever since. Shelly hadn't said a damn word until now. She'd been pretty shaken up too.

"How do I tell him?" He demanded, again wishing he was someone else.

"You just, tell him." she swallowed and looked out towards the entrance of the club.

"You just, have to."

"I don't know how." He admitted and put both hands on the steering wheel.

There was nothing he thought he couldn't take, nothing he couldn't handle, he could go in there and tell his boss that his queen was dead and do it calmly, without hesitation but to tell him this?

"He needs to know." Shelly insisted. "If you don't tell him, he'll make you pay for it."

That was the sad truth, if Jonny chose to keep this to himself, if he refused to tell J about this and he found out later? There would be the nine hells to pay for it.

He grabbed the envelope from Shelly's lap and pulled out the letter Harley had written for him.

Asking Jonny to tell J, to show him what she'd sent him, to please find her, that she couldn't be there anymore. That she was in danger.

He knew her writing as well as he knew the Joker's, this was not forged, it was her and wherever she was, she wasn't in a position to help them find her.

Whoever sent this for her, they made sure not to allow any information that might help, they'd blacked out words, both sides of the paper

No names, no locations, maybe if Harley had a clue where she was, this person was going to be sure to keep that location hidden, maybe out of fear, probably out of something else.

He got out of the car and walked to the entrance of the building. He didn't check if Shelly was coming up behind him, she wouldn't be coming inside either way. No one would be, he got the gut wrenching feeling that anyone who got in J's way right now, might not see tomorrow, including himself.

The place was mostly empty, as it had been for the past few months, all the boys out looking for Harley. Only a few left here to keep an eye on everything.

J just didn't care, he was willing to let it all go, to let every penny slip to nothing, territories abandoned, easily snatched up by their enemies, all for her, all because of her.

 _What will he do when he finds out about this?_

There was a chance he'd do nothing, there was a chance he'd loose his mind and there was even the chance, that he'd...

No, he couldn't think about it, it was going to break his skull in two if he thought about it.

He knew one unmistakable thing about his employer, the man was completely unpredictable.

The second you started thinking you understood him, he changed the script on you. It was better to just leave your opinion of him blank and watch what happened. If you tried to guess his motives, you lost yourself, you lost your mind.

After all, Jonny had been wrong about Harley hadn't he?

He hadn't expected the woman who'd been an upcoming doctor, who'd tried to help him. He'd written her off as just another corpse.

Jonny hadn't imagined in his wildest strangest dreams that she'd become J's consort, that she'd become the queen of crime.

J could have killed her, Jonny hadn't thought that J was capable of feeling love.

That was something he'd never thought his boss was capable of, lust? Sure that he could believe, especially for their lifestyle, for the chaos he created with such ease but for a woman? For that woman?

Yeah, Jonny believed that J loved her, he'd never said it, he sure as hell wasn't the affectionate kind of guy, not in the ' _normal_ ' way but you only had to see those moments when he was off guard, when he let the feelings take over, his jealousy when other people looked in her direction, when he kissed her, when she'd gotten hurt.

Jonny had feared that she'd died, that they'd go to Gotham's morgue and find her corpse laying there, cold and unmoving, that he'd be the one to have to tell his boss, that he'd have to be the one to show him the body and watch the man fall to pieces and the rest of them with him because Frost was sure of one thing.

If Harley died, the Joker would destroy them all.

He would leave no one alive, they'd all suffer his pain.

Thank whatever fucking deity out there that she hadn't been at the morgue.

It left J in limbo.

Jonny rode the elevator in silence, holding the envelope tightly in his hands.

It pinged too quickly and the doors opened, no one was up here.

The place had been cleaned up again, no one had been up here, only he had to bring J something to eat, make sure he wasn't dead.

He'd worried about that more than once, to find his boss laid out dead, a self inflicted wound somewhere on him because he couldn't take being without Harley anymore.

He didn't have to look for him, he knew exactly where to find him.

He heard a sound as he got closer to the room, a woman's voice. Harley's voice.

 _He's watching videos of her again_. He thought to himself.

He was sitting up, he'd taken a shower today. Clean clothes, he also didn't look like he'd been drinking either.

Jonny rarely saw his boss drink, only up here and only when he was sure they weren't going anywhere but in the past few months, the clown had drunk enough to give himself alcohol poisoning ten times over.

He'd gone through all the alcohol in the study, which had always been just for show, then he'd sent the boys out for more of it every couple of days.

He looked, more focused today.

"What do you want?" he asked, not looking up. "Did you find her?"

'No." he said honestly, he pushed away any reservations he had about this and held up the envelope. "But this is from her."

J's head snapped up at that and he stared at the yellow envelop that Frost held in his hand. With quicker moves than should be possible he snatched it out of his grasp and flipped the edge open.

It wasn't addressed to him, it was addressed to Frost's wife but he knew that writing.

"Get out." he ordered but Frost hesitated.

"Boss..."

"GET OUT!" He yelled and Frost looked away, as if resigning himself to something, had he read the contents already? It was open, it was obvious he had but who gave a fuck, it was from Harley, it was from her.

Jonny backed away and shut the door behind him, swallowing hard and going to lean against the opposing wall. He knew that soon, J was going to scream for him.

J emptied the contents of the envelope out, he could almost smell her on the paper.

There was a letter in a separate envelope and it felt like there was something else in it, there were pictures too, several of them, which had all fallen faced down in front of him.

"Oh puddin, what I send you?" the familiar hallucination said excitedly. "Am I on some beach somewhere? Am I off in Paris having the time of my life while you're sitting here wrecked and broken?"

He growled at the thought.

"Oh, I better not be huh? Cause the punishment you'll give me for that, oh boy. Oh puddin, what if this is a dear John letter? Ya know, a break up letter and I've sent you pictures of my new boyfriend?"

"Shut up." he growled, flipping over the closest picture.

"Oh puddin, wasn't expecting that were ya?" Her voice had gone very quiet, almost a whisper as he stared at the picture.

No, that couldn't be right.

It was Harley, she was wearing hospital clothes, her hair tied back into a messy ponytail, she looked thin, exhausted but there was a brilliant smile on her face and she was staring at something bundled up in her arms. Something small, something wrapped in blankets.

A baby.

He picked up another picture, it was of the infant, looking up at someone with its fist up to its mouth, another photo, Harley holding the baby again but a close up. The child, holding onto Harley's fingers almost possessively.

"Oh look puddin, isn't that just the most amazing thing you've ever seen?" Her voice whispered in his ear. "Oh look at those tiny little hands, look at those blue eyes, don't they look like yours a bit puddin?"

He flipped over every picture, all of them of Harley and this child. All of them set in a hospital room, handcuffs with long chains on both of Harley's wrists, bars on the covered window.

A prison.

What the fuck was this?

A thousand thoughts went through his head, none of them good. What the hell was she doing with a baby? Why did she look so thin? So badly taken care of. Her hair was lifeless, the bright blue and pink dye she always wore was long gone, someone had cut her hair at some point. Her bleach blonde hair just hung listless against her face. She had dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks looked so hollow.

She held the infant so closely, like it was... no, that wasn't possible.

The baby was incredibly small, blonde, its skin was a red color but you could tell that the child would be a paler white.

It's eyes were alive, there was no haze in them, infants supposedly were unable to see clearly, their eyes were limited but this child's eyes were acute, focused and its focus was all on Harley.

Harley, Harley, Harley!

He slammed the picture down, his head throbbing, his blood pumping as he opened the other envelope, a memory card fell out but he ignored it, focusing on the pages.

Her handwriting, obvious places where someone had marked out words with marker, making it nearly impossible to read the words that might have lay under that ink.

Puddin.

So I'm gonna make this quick since I know you're gonna be all impatient since I know you'll probably be looking at the photos I've sent you. That baby, is our baby. Isn't she beautiful. Isn't she just perfect? She was born two days ago, the 17th at 1:46 am, I had her by myself in my cell. She was supposed to be born in August but she decided to come early. Just like her daddy, does as she pleases and doesn't care who it affects. I named her Eve, I know that's the name you wanted. Eve Lucie.

\- - tells me that they won't take her from me but I don't believe him. They want something from her, I don't know what, they keep me sedated. Puddin, I think they're going to take her from me, I think they're going to do something terrible to her. I overheard something earlier, something about - - but I have no clue what that could be, I think they want to make her a - - – - l won't let that happen, I know your looking for me, I know you'll never stop and I know that you will find us. She has your eyes, your nose, your ears, she's ours, I promise you that puddin, she's not anyone elses. They gave me a player, it plays your voice, it's strange, I don't know why they do it but I have a suspicion what it might be for, - - - - - – - -. I let her listen to your voice, she loves it. You should see her eyes light up when I put the headphone to her little ear. Nothing else seems to matter as she listens to you talk, your laugh, she knows her daddy.

Puddin, please love her, please love her as much as I do. I can't wait for you to see her, to hold her, to see what we made together, we made her puddin. This is our daughter, your heiress, your princess.

I love you puddin, I miss you so much.

Your Harley.

He re-read the letter five times before he let the information sink in.

The baby in the photos was theirs?

The 17th, the child had been born six days ago, that meant Harley was alive. She'd been pregnant, alone. She'd given birth on her own, in a cell?

He felt the burning in his blood, the rushing of his mind.

"Isn't she beautiful puddin? Princess Eve, I like the sound of that. She does have your nose, how can you deny that little face?"

"Harley, shut up." he ordered but the madness of his mind refused to let this go.

"How can you be conflicted about this puddin? Look at that child, look at her, that small, unbelievable child came into this world early and is thriving, alive. The perfect blending of your blood and of mine. Watch the memory card, I bet I've sent you something special."

J forced himself to sit back down, this was too much of an impossibility, it's unreal, it's not what he wanted.

"You want this." Harley taunted, coming around to face him. There's something in her arms, it's wrapped in a blanket and it's grunting and gurgling.

Harley comes down to her knees and presents the new born child in front of him.

"Look at her puddin, this is your daughter, we made her, we did this together. Remember, you thought about this before, the most perfect form of chaos, a life, a perfect forming of chaos that comes wrapped up in this tiny little being."

The baby wriggled angrily against Harley's arms, she was so angry, so frustrated, like she wanted something that Harley couldn't give her.

He ignored the hallucination, he didn't want to look at it.

So he focused on something he knew was real.

He slammed the memory card into the closest tablet and scanned the contents.

There were several video clips, all of them numbered by date.

The first was dated the 17th of June, he clicked it and opened the file.

"Eve, can you say hi?" Harley was talking to the infant, the girl looked more red than she did in the photos, her face bruised, distorted from her birth. "Can you say hello to daddy honey bun? Can you say, Hi daddy, I'm Eve and I'm a whole eleven hours old. I'm the most beautiful thing in the world, I got ten perfect little fingers, see daddy..."

Harley held up the baby's hands, running the tips of her own fingers over the baby's knuckles.

"I got mommy's fingers but I got your hands daddy, see how strong I am?, look, I'm gripping mommy's finger so tight." Harley laughed at her and the baby turned her face towards the sound, fascinated by the laugh.

"You wanna show daddy how well you know him Eve? Huh honey bun?"

Harley reached down next to her and held up a music player, one of those cheap twenty dollar ones, she clicked play and he heard his voice vibrate from the headphones, whoever was recording the video came closer.

Harley moved the headphone around Eve's head, the sound of his voice moving with it. The baby moved her head in fascination and when Harley finally placed the headphone against her ear, the baby made a gurgling sound and pressed her small cheek against Harley's palm.

He paid more attention to Harley now that the infant was still, she looked so happy but exhausted, he knew that body so well, she'd lost muscle weight, not just fat, the strength he remembered had diminished a little and from where he saw it, it had nothing to do with her pregnancy. There was still the swell of her belly as she adjusted herself on the bed, laying back on the raised hospital bed to get comfortable. Earning herself a displeased sound from the child.

"I could just hold you forever." she was saying to Eve. "Yes I could, cause you are just so adorable, mommy's little honey bun, when we get home. I think I'm gonna get daddy to have a really big party for you, since your birth was so boring. Yeah, tell daddy about your birth honey bun. Say, I woke mommy up in the middle of the night with sharp pain in the dark and mommy got all sorts of panicked cause I was due in August but I said, uh uh, I'm not gonna be born when they say, I'm gonna come right now and no one's gonna stop me cause I'm Eve and I'm just that good. And I made mommy give birth to me all by herself in the dark and I was such a good girl and I didn't scream so mommy got to hold me all new for like four hours before someone noticed that we were there. Then I got to go through these other cages where all the people called my name, yeah cause I'm the princess of crime and they all know it."

The video jumped, like someone had edited it and he growled. Obviously she must have said something that could potentially help in finding her, the person who was taking this was slowly rising up the list of people he intended to kill, no, not kill worse, destroy.

He clicked through another video, it was of Harley feeding her. There was a stirring in his gut as he watched the way Harley held the little baby, Eve greedily feeding on her mother's breast, her small hand pressed up against her mother as if she were holding Harley steady.

Harley didn't speak, she just watched, brushing back the dark blonde hair on Eve's head as she ate.

He couldn't watch anymore.

He closed the file and threw the tablet aside, breathing in heavily.

What the hell was he supposed to do?

"Is it so bad puddin?" Her voice again. He looked up and saw her on her knees with that bundle in her arms but now the way she sounded and the movements were more accurate.

He'd seen just enough to get the idea of how the baby was, looked into those eyes that might one day be a mirror of his own and he growled, looking away from her.

"What are you scared of? That one day she'll rule over all of Gotham in your name? That she's not worthy of being your heiress."

"I don't care about blood." he snapped and she rolled her eyes at him.

"No but look at this little girl and tell me that you don't think she'll be worthy one day, that this child isn't the perfect genetic creation that can meet your every standard."

"You think I'm just suddenly going to become this perfect father? That I'm going to take her to baseball practice, to ballet and have little tea parties with her?"

He looked away from her and then another voice took over.

Something that terrified him.

"What's so wrong with tea parties daddy?"

His whole body tensed up as he turned to look at his nightmare.

Harley was gone, so was the baby and in its place was a little girl.

Her eyes the gray blue of his own and the image of her as his brain imagined her, his nose but so much like her mother. Her smile, her fire sparkling in those eyes.

Her hair was braided in two pigtail braids, done up with ribbons that cascaded down her back. She wore a purple and blue dress with a blue jacket over it, one of Harley's most expensive necklaces around her small delicate neck.

She couldn't have been older than four and yet there was power radiating off her, chaotic power that seemed all too familiar.

"Scared?" she teased playfully and then laughed, her whole face lit up and she bent forward, tilting her head sideways to catch his attention. "Daddy's scared of me, boo."

She ran around his circle, jumping over his weapons, his guns, his knives, giggling and clapping her hands.

"Boo, boo, boo." She squealed before the child vanished behind the image of Harley who was sitting on the bed.

"So puddin, what cha gonna do?" Harley asked, pulling the little girl into her arms. "Gonna let your girls rot in a cage for the rest of their lives?"

"Yeah daddy, gonna let me grow up in there? That's no fun, wanna come home." Eve declared happily, holding up her toy kitten, the same kitten Harley had given him.

He let himself fall back, if he left them there, they would rot, he still had no clue where they were anyway but now... what the fuck was he supposed to do?

Eve's face appeared in his vision, she blinked down at him a few times and pouted at him dramatically.

"You don't want me to call someone else daddy do you daddy?" she asked curiously. "That would be kinda sad and who's gonna take on the robin and all the other bats when you get old? I mean, you'll get to teach me all the stuff and I'll be able to go blow stuff up."

"And what if you turn out... like them?" he asked the child.

Eve moved away for a second and when she came back into his focus, she wasn't the child anymore. She was a grown woman, at least twenty one.

"Does it look like I'm gonna be normal dad?" she asked with an amused expression. "You are just scared to be my dad, that's all. Ya gotta realize though, I'm not some baby inside moms stomach who died, who you mourned because loss is all you know. I'm real, I'm out there and I'm waiting for ya. Isn't it bad enough that your only child was born somewhere that isn't Gotham? You really want me to grow up calling somewhere else home?"

"No."

"Then go do something about it man, I'm gonna grow up with or without you and the truth is this, you're gonna miss out dude." she grinned at him, still wearing her mother's necklace. "It's okay, you'll do fine once you hold me."

He looked away but she leaned closer, he heard Harley laughing in the background.

"Dad, just wait till I get here, you won't know what to do with me, I'll drive everyone here crazy, Frost will start getting gray in his hair cause he'll have ANOTHER one to take care of and just imagine what the clients will say when they see your amazingly beautiful, stunning daughter down in the club. I'm the wild card dad, I'm the future. Since when were you afraid of the future?"

"I am not afraid of you."

"Oh really, prove it then old man, come find me. Come find me and my mom and show me how unafraid you are of an itsy, bitsy baby girl. I came into this world on my own terms, next moves yours."

"Told ya puddin, just like her daddy."

When he finally brought himself to sit up, he was alone in the room, both women were gone and any sign that they'd ever been there none existent.

He wanted Harley back, he needed her, she was alive and she was in danger, her body was suffering, she was being held away from him. He'd already known he had to find her but now he had proof of what he feared, that someone was using her, that someone was...

Now, there was more to it, that baby, that helpless new born who'd been secretly hiding away inside of Harley the night he'd let the car go into the lake, the night that Harley could have easily died but she didn't, that child had survived too.

He didn't know what that meant for him, what that meant between Harley and him but he knew one thing.

That baby would not be staying in that cage, whatever he felt, whatever he understood, there was a stirring inside him, something predatory, something primal that drove him with instinct.

It wasn't love, no, it wasn't that, it was something else, a new voice that growled in his head, a new instinct. Something that told him that he didn't want that child to grow up to know someone else as her father, that he wanted her here, where he could keep his eyes on her. So that he could mold her into something.

He got up, storming to the door and swinging it open.

He wasn't surprised to find Frost with his arms crossed waiting for him.

"So what are we doing?"

"You find them, whatever you've got out there, double it, put out more money, offer whatever you have to but I want them found."

"Yes boss." Frost nodded and J left the room. Jonny watched him as he strode towards the door that remained closed, the door that had been intended for JJ.

"No daddy." J turned towards Frost, where the image of Eve stood. Her clothes had changed, she wore a pink dress with her hair loose, gold and silver glitter on her cheeks. "That's JJ's room, that's not my room."

Frost didn't move, he just watched J as he stared at thin air, wondering what he saw, curious but staying silent. It was better he not ask, it was better he not know.

Eve skipped down the hall, to another room, a room that was normally used to house all of Harley's weapons, that housed his weapons too.

"This is my room daddy." the child declared, walking in and standing in the middle. "I don't want hand me downs from my big brother."

 _You don't have one._

"Yes I did daddy, I had a big brother and he was real and so am I." she smiled at him sweetly. "Uncle Frost is waiting for you daddy, you better tell him to get a move on. I want to have my room ready when I get home."

J stepped away from the door, watching as his illusion sat down on the ground and picked up one of the knives, idly playing with it as she spoke to herself.

He turned to Jonny again, the man stood still, as calm as he always did.

"Get her room ready, I want it done before they're found."

"Course boss." Frost stood there for a second, wondering if he should say what he wanted to say.

"What?"

"I suppose, congratulations J. she's a cute kid."

J looked back at the child who was still playing with the sharp knife, completely at ease with it.

"Yeah, cute kid."

"She's definitely your kid though boss." Frost said warily. "No denying her."

 _No, there wasn't._

"How do you want to play this boss?"

"What ya mean?"

J crossed his arms, staring into the room that would house the child, trying to imagine it as anything else but a storage room but he couldn't quite picture it.

"Do you want to keep this between us?"

"No." J said quickly. His face setting with resolve. "I want this public, I want every fucking person to know. I want that child's picture everywhere, everyone of our clients, our enemies, everyone."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I want the bat to know, I want him to look into that picture, I want him to look at that baby and see what he really took from me. I want them here and I want them back quickly do I make myself clear Jonny?"

"Crystal boss"

"And Jonny, I don't want that kid walking when we find her, if she is, I will hold you personally responsible for the time lapse. So I suggest you figure out how many months it takes before a baby learns to walk."

"Understood."

"That's mean daddy." Eve said looking up with a grin.

"The memory card has videos on it, I want you to get it analyzed, understood?"

"Yeah, was there anything in them to help us?"

J snorted. "Of course not, she tried though, I want you to clean it up, find out whatever you can. I'll re-watch it all, Harley's a smart girl, she'll have put some clues in there somewhere."

"You think this is a trap boss?"

"No, this is something worse." he admitted. "This is someone being kind."

Both men shared a look, there was nothing more dangerous than someone being kind.

Hell was paved in good intentions.

"I'll get your kid back boss, I promise." Frost turned to leave. "What's her name?"

"Eve, Harley named her Eve."

"Pretty, I'll tell the boys."

Frost walked away, feeling the weight of the world back on his shoulders but knowing better than to let it get to him.

This is why he had no kids, they weighted the world on you and this wasn't even his kid, it was the Joker's daughter.

Even thinking it felt surreal, the joker had a daughter. He hadn't seen the videos, what did J see that shook him so badly.

J continued to watch his hallucination play, she had started singing to herself.

"Hush lil baby don't say a word, Eve's gonna kill for you the whole damn world..." she frowned before looking up at him. "I don't know the rest daddy."

J walked into the room, crouching down to her level.

"And if they don't laugh at our jokes, daddy's gonna stab out their goddamn throats."

Eve giggled at him and stood so that they were a little off form eye level.

"Don't worry daddy, it'll be fun, you'll see. I'm your wild card."

"Wild card."

"Yeah, I'm you and I'm mommy, it'll be great, wait till the batman finds out. He'll be really shook up daddy, all cause of me."

She smiled and placed both her hands over her mouth playfully.

"Smile for me daddy, remember, don't forget to smile."

He gave her the smile and she grinned, utterly pleased with herself.

It's how he imagined her, just so pleased with herself, pleased to make him smile, that spark that was her mother in those eyes and confidence that shouldn't exist in a child her age. Strength that would rival the bat's protege's, that would outmatch them.

"You'll learn to love me." she whispered conspiratorially. "Just like you did mommy."

He doubted that, what he felt wasn't love, he didn't believe he had it in him to love two people, loving Harley, that had been enough to self admit, though he hadn't admitted it to anyone else.

To love this child?

He didn't think he could but what he did feel, thinking of that infant who so possessively gripped Harley's finger, who reacted to the sound of his voice, who's eyes were so alert, so awake.

He felt pride for her.

He hadn't even meant to create that being but she existed.

"Princess Eve." he mused to himself. "You know, I think I like the sound of that too."

He'd find them, he had to, that future belonged to him, not to whoever had Harley, it was his right and no one should take what was his, no one should take his toys and no one should ever, ever take his girls.

He got up and left the room, the boys would be up here soon to clear it out, he'd tell them later how he wanted it done up but for now...

He walked back to the bedroom and sat back down in his circle, the sinking lost feeling he'd felt earlier gone. Replaced by a sudden, calm, a sudden ease inside of him.

J picked up the tablet again and pressed play on the third video.

"Hush little baby don't say a word, mama's gonna kill for you the whole damn world."

He smiled as he heard Harley singing her version of the lullaby and how Eve's eyes fluttered open and shut as Harley rocked her to sleep.

"And if they don't laugh at our jokes, daddy's gonna stab out their goddamn throats." he sang along with Harley so that both voices echoed in the room.

Finally the baby's eyes closed completely and he watched her small little body relax against Harley's chest, completely at ease in her mother's embrace.

J wondered if Eve had been anywhere other than Harley's arms, if she knew what it meant to be cold, to not be held.

Probably not.

J hadn't closed his door this time, so when Frost walked by with a few of the boys who all looked, well as stunned as he had, to clear out the room they saw their boss sitting in his self made sanctuary looking at his tablet, Harley's voice echoing from the device.

When Harley stopped singing, no one moved, they all just listened as she spoke.

"Night night Eve, sweet dreams. When you wake up we'll make another video for daddy. So he can see you some more."

A child who no one here had meet already owned them, owned every single one of them and she didn't know it yet, she had no clue of the change she'd made, the change in their heart rates at the very idea that she existed.

That was power, that was true and utter power, just by the mention that she could be real, they all broke.

 _That's my girl._ J thought and clicked on the next one.

A/N Yay, okay so if you haven't read Life and destruction, you might want to cause this is set in that AU story. So I wanted to keep J in character but hopefully show a realistic progression of how his mind would process Eve. If you're wondering how Harley got all that to him, well ya gotta wait till next chapter in LaD.

So lets be fair, in real life no J and Harley would be terrible parents but not int eh way you might think. There are parents in real life who don't need to be parents and they ain't half as bad as Harls and J are but I can tell you this. I honestly believe that Eve would be taken care of, she'd never go without, her needs would all be met. The misconception is that sociopaths and psychopaths are automatically going to be bad parents, something to consider. When someone with those sorts of conditions make connections, you'd have to pry that connection from their cold dead hands to get them away. Emotionally? Hmmm, probably not the best parents in the world but lets remember, this is not fully the real world. There are fucking super heroes and villains, aliens and angels and demons. I think we can look at J and Harley, then look at Eve and go, yeah, I totally believe that they're parents of that kid. Besides, I got plans to show you some interactions later on between Eve as she really is, not the mental images both her parents have of her at this stage and how she interacts with everyone.

Anyway, please please please review, I haven't' quite decided when J is going to find them. I could go canon and stick to the suicide squad time line which would mean it takes thirteen months from Eve's birth for them to find her or I could completely AU the canon and have him find them before hand. I will see what you guys have to say on it.

Anyway, as always, I love you all. Hope you enjoyed this little one shot and looking at J's bran a little more in depth. Catch ya all next time and Happy Halloween.


	4. Chapter 4

Multiple Choice

He opened his eyes and saw that it was still dark.

His clock read 5:56am, his alarm would go off in a few minutes and he'd be forced to wake up and get ready for work.

He hated getting up so early. He had a hard enough time getting to sleep as it was and when he did sleep it never felt long enough.

He sighed heavily and turned over onto his side, wrapping his arm around the warm body that laid next to him.

She moaned softly and curled into him, placing a kiss on his neck while she was still asleep.

She mumbled something but he couldn't make out what. He smirked. She'd never be able to be in the military intelligence if she talked in her sleep.

His smile turned into a frown quickly though, his hands running down the length of her body. She was cold and even in her long sleeved night clothes, he knew she still felt it.

She wouldn't say a word about it. She'd suffer in silence so he didn't give her all the covers. She refused to complain, tried to be a stronger person than she really was. He admired her for it, but there was no need for her to freeze to death for his sake.

Not her.

Anyone else could, but not her.

He wrapped her more closely in his arms and made sure she was completely covered in the blankets.

"You need to stay warm," he whispered to the sleeping form of his wife. "It's not good for the baby."

The baby.

He moved his hand and slowly touched the small bump where his son was growing inside of her. She was just far enough along to show and she loved when he ran his hands over the swell, playing with the infant inside.

He wanted to be happy about it. He wanted to enjoy the idea of being a father but he was nineteen years old, working two jobs and still barely making enough to support his growing family.

Maybe it'd been a mistake to do all this. He could still remember the way his father yelled at him, half drunk and enraged.

 _You're throwing your life away for some bitch who claims you knocked her up? You're an idiot. She's playing you, robbing your future from you and if you did stick it in her then you're a bigger idiot than I thought._

Like he had room to talk.

He pushed that thought away and relaxed his body against her. He'd do better than his own father. He'd do more.

Anything.

He already had, several times now.

She had no clue what he did on the side, the jobs he did to earn them more money.

It paid better than both jobs combined but it was always risky, always a dangerous path to take.

Every time he took a job, he risked getting caught and he risked not coming home.

Still, if anything did happen to him they'd be taken care of. The money he was saving, the insurance that came with his death might even warrant him fucking up and getting himself killed.

No, he wanted to be part of his son's life. He wanted to do right by him. Even if his hands had to be dirty to do it.

He was exceptionally smart. After all, it was why they came to him, why they asked him to do the jobs. He had the brains to figure it out, plan things and pull off the impossible.

In a town like Gotham, that was an absolute must.

He was too young for all of this. He was too young for a family, for this world of responsibilities.

He had letters from colleges with scholarships, engineering programs biting at the teeth for him to join their companies but without the proper degrees he couldn't accept them.

College was out of the question. It didn't pay for the doctor visits, the rent and the bills.

It didn't put food on the table, either.

The alarm started buzzing and he sighed, his moment of silence was over and his day had to begin.

He turned the stupid thing off and laid kiss after kiss along her neck and shoulder, wishing he could just stay in bed with her and relax all day and forget work, forget the train and everything else that was supposed to go on today.

"Don't go." She almost read his mind. "Stay with me. Call in sick."

"Hmm, tempted," he confessed. God, he loved her.

"Then stay," she urged sweetly and her arms wrapped around his neck and she sleepily pulled him in. "Please."

He groaned, wishing he could do as she asked but he couldn't. He had to go in. He had so much to plan today, to get done before tonight.

They needed the money.

"I can't," he admitted and pulled away, his chest aching to hear the whimper she let out as she covered back up in the blankets.

"Will you be home late again?" she asked, her eyes blinking up at him in the darkness.

"Yeah. Don't worry honey, it's the only night this week I'll be late."

She sighed in relief and reached an arm out, cupping his face.

"Good, I miss you."

He grinned down at her and leaned forward, catching her lips for a searing kiss.

"Love you, pumpkin," he breathed before getting himself up.

She giggled but didn't get out of the bed.

She was too cold and he wasn't going to make her, either.

He took a shower and got dressed, going back to the bed and kissing her head softly.

"I'll see you tonight," he promised and she mumbled sleepily.

"Okay, I'll make sure to have dinner waiting for you."

He left the small apartment after grabbing his thick jacket and headed towards the train station.

He didn't have to work that second job tonight but he couldn't tell her the truth about where he was really going.

She'd freak out. It was bad for the baby.

It wasn't like she hadn't known what he was capable of before they got married. It was something he loved about her; she knew and still stayed at his side. Those weren't things you found easily. But she'd get worried, she always did.

He stepped out into the cold morning of Gotham, sighing as he put on his invisible mask.

He called it his _average Joe mask_. It always made her laugh.

She always laughed for him.

She thought his jokes were funny, even the really racy ones and he loved to hear her laugh.

She had a sweet laugh, like music. If she thought he was working at the factory, she wouldn't pace in front of the phone. She'd stay calm. She'd have his dinner waiting for him and he'd find her asleep on the couch, waiting for him and he'd apologize and she'd smile sleepily and get up, go into the kitchen even if he protested and would heat up his dinner.

He felt guilty for lying, but it was for her own good. She'd stay safer that way. No stress on her or the baby.

It almost became a mantra: for her and the baby, for her and the baby.

If he said it enough times, then maybe it would be enough to be the truth.

It got him through the day, made the menial work he did less painful.

Working at a chemical facility might sound great until you got into the details of the job.

He wasn't a researcher; he wasn't even a lab assistant. He cleaned out the equipment. A step above a janitor and he knew more about the formulas and serums they worked on than some of the doctors.

She'd looked at him guiltily when she'd told him she was pregnant.

" _You wanted to go to college, you wanted to become an engineer. You can't do that with a baby."_

That's what night school was for. And the other things.

This was Gotham city, crime was just a way of life. It was how you got by, how you survived. Very few people in his neck of the woods got by without some criminal activity.

Everyone was touched by it. You were related to someone who worked for the mob or you worked for them yourself.

What he did...well, he wasn't related and he didn't work for them. Not exactly.

 _Engineering? You're a stupid boy. That ain't gonna put food on the table. You've got other skills._ He heard his father laugh at him as he scrubbed the beakers with the scalding water.

Other skills.

 _Skills that use brains, you bastard._ He thought bitterly as he got ready to leave for his lunch break.

His mind worked like that sometimes. Sometimes he'd be thinking of something and time would just slip away from him. Other times he'd think of a million things and feel like hours had gone by, discovering afterwards that only a few minutes had elapsed.

He'd always been like that, ever since he was a kid and in all this time only she'd managed to sooth it.

He could exist in the moment with her and when he did get lost, she brought him right back.

He'd honestly be lost without her. She was the only good thing in his life.

God, he sounded pathetic. A lovesick boy who would literally do anything to keep himself and his love afloat.

The whole day moved like that and all of a sudden his shift was over. The time had run away from him again and he needed to head to the factory. That's where he kept everything, but he had a sudden urge to go home.

He wanted to see her. He needed to see her.

Hopping on the train, he sat down and opened a piece of mail that had been sent to the lab.

It was from Gotham University. His name was printed on the front and the emblem of the school was on the top corner.

He tore the envelope in two and stuffed it into his jacket.

He had no time for that, not yet. Not until he could make enough to support them.

He was smart and he knew what he needed.

He needed money. He needed enough money to make a move on his goals.

He could play the stock market. Over the past three months he had managed to predict the change and flow of the economy.

He could make investments that would thrive, even here in a place like Gotham.

 _Maybe we could move away,_ he thought to himself as he got off the train.

Maybe Metropolis or even New York where things weren't so bad but his roots were here in Gotham. So were hers and he wanted his son's roots to be here too, only for those roots to be stronger. Better off.

It'd gotten a little warmer since this morning but he still felt cold. Heavy. Uneasy.

Every time he scanned his surroundings he felt like he was being watched but could never quite find anyone looking in his direction.

He got paranoid sometimes. He thought he saw things, thought he heard things. The doctors had told him he might have a disorder but he didn't believe them. He wasn't crazy.

He stopped at the corner store and picked up her favorite dessert. She'd be surprised to see him home so early but he'd make something up, as long as he left before six he'd be alright.

He climbed the stairs back to their apartment and unlocked the door.

"Harley?" he called as he took off his jacket.

He could smell something good in the kitchen, she was making pot roast and it made his stomach growl.

"J?" The sound of surprise in her voice made him smile. He walked into the living room to find her with those ridiculous curlers in her hair.

He'd caught her taking them out so the back of her blonde hair was perfectly curled and the front looked like funny horns.

"Hey, beautiful," he purred and held out his arms for her.

She giggled, her blue eyes bright as she ran towards him.

They shared a deep, burning kiss that left them both breathless and she let her head fall back a little when he finally let her go for air.

"You're home early," she declared happily, wrapping her arms around his neck and smiling up at him. "I thought you said you had to work late."

"I do," he said as honestly as he could. "I just got to go in later than I thought and I figured that I'd come home to my beautiful wife and..."

He lowered himself onto his knees and kissed her belly.

"…my son."

She giggled and pulled him back up so he was standing.

"I can't say I'm complaining," she admitted and pulled him back for another kiss.

The kiss grew more urgent, burning them both with sudden need.

"You want to eat?" she asked breathlessly when they pulled apart again.

"No," he confessed and pulled her closer.

He sadly didn't have enough time for anything more than a passionate make out session but just being with her felt like he was melting away.

The world shrunk away and all that existed was her.

"I love you," she breathed anxiously, desperate to have him closer.

"I know," he growled back possessively and captured her lips again. "I love you, too."

He'd studied chemistry for so long he thought he knew everything about it but there was something between them that was pure alchemy, a chemistry that worked beyond his understanding.

It was as if she'd been made for him, as if they were part of each other. That's how perfectly they fit together, it was why he couldn't question the baby inside of her. He knew without a doubt that it was his son because in her eyes, there was no one else.

When he finally got his need under control he moved away from her just enough and pulled her onto the couch, adjusting himself so she could lie across him comfortably.

She was tiny compared to him, petite and lithe but her stomach made it hard for her to mold quite as comfortably as she had before.

"Your dad called," she mumbled, laying her head on his chest.

He scoffed. "How much does he want this time?"

"I hung up on him when he accused me of trying to trap you."

He stopped her before she went on. "Good, he doesn't need to be calling here anyway."

She stayed quiet for a while. "J?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think I got pregnant to trap you?" her voice was hesitant, scared, worried.

"What?! No, hey, don't believe anything that asshole tells you. He just wants to think the worst of anyone. Besides, he's jealous."

"You know I'd never do that, I know how important it was for you to go to college and I never wanted-"

He covered her mouth with his left hand to shut her up.

"Harls, I love you. You think I married you because you got pregnant?" She didn't move but her eyes darted away from his gaze.

He sighed and pulled her as close as he possibly could.

"I married you because I wanted to marry you. I'm sorry I couldn't give you some big wedding, I'm sorry it was what it was and I'm sorry we don't have more to show for it but I married you because I love you. Everything else doesn't matter."

He put his hand down and she lowered her head for a moment.

When he tilted her chin up he found a smile on her lips and a renewed brightness in her eyes.

"You know, if any of the guys heard you talk like that they'd accuse you of being poetic."

"Fuck them," he grinned.

"You are poetic," she teased, "when you want to be."

"Only for you, pumpkin pie. No one else."

"You hungry?" she asked the question from earlier.

"Yeah, I'm hungry."

She grinned and jumped off him, heading towards the kitchen.

That foreboding feeling in his gut didn't go away after she left.

They ate together and he spent as much time as he could with her before he knew he couldn't wait any longer.

He left her reading her psychiatry text books.

God, if they both could make something of themselves they'd live in some suburban two story house with a big front yard and a nice car.

Was that what he wanted?

No. Naybe a nice place here in the city, on the nicer side of town.

Yeah, that was more his style. Something classy, uptown where Gotham was still part of them, part of their son.

It was dark now and he had to hurry to get to the chemical plant.

The job had to be done tonight, no exceptions, he hadn't failed so far and he had no intentions of failing tonight but his gut kept telling him to turn around and go home.

He kept feeling like something was wrong with everything and it was getting hard to focus.

He inwardly snarled at himself, he couldn't be distracted by anything.

The job was the job, after all.

When he finally got to the plant he found his hidden bag untouched. Who'd really notice a backpack with a hooded jacket and a couple of water bottles?

He got changed and looked at himself in the mirror, sighing at the outfit.

Suddenly he wasn't himself anymore. He wasn't a husband or a father to be, he was the red hood; a criminal, a killer.

A murderer for hire for the right price.

Gotham was the property of the mob after all, and mob families always got into it, always fought amongst themselves. Assassination was an inevitability. He'd been doing this since he was sixteen years old, the sad thing was, it'd never bothered him to kill someone.

He'd never felt remorse for it, even though he knew he should. It just didn't come to him.

He didn't even want to feel bad about it, he'd gotten paid for it and there had been a sort of thrill in the whole thing.

It didn't go to plan. He should have listened to his gut.

He should have known it was a setup, the job had been too easy and it had gone wrong too easily.

They were waiting for him after he'd done his part, they'd grabbed him and without saying a word they started to beat him senseless.

Two men held his arms, they were going to beat him to death and by the looks of it they were going to enjoy it.

Blow after blow he took, the pain growing till it was nearly unbearable.

The taste of blood was filling his mouth. He felt broken bones, bruised flesh and for what?

These men who wanted him dead?

Time became fuzzy again. He was in so much pain but suddenly he began to laugh insanely.

"You think this is funny? You a joker now, funny man? You think this is a joke? You mess with the wrong people, you pay the price."

He laughed harder.

"Funny man here, huh? What, you think you're a clown? Look here, boys. I say we drown the funny out of him."

They drug him to a swimming pool. It was amazing how desperate they were to make him suffer for whatever he'd supposedly done.

He believed they wanted to hurt him so they could justify the pain they were inflicting on him.

He barely noticed at first when they dunked his head into the water, he kept laughing until his lungs filled with chlorine filled water. Were they trying to threaten him? To take the fall for them?

He wouldn't.

"You're gonna take this and like it," the main goon growled when they pulled him out of the water.

"Fuck you," he laughed in agony as he sputtered up water.

They dunked him again and demanded the same thing over and over but his answer was always no. He would not beg for his life.

He wouldn't give them what they wanted.

His eyes were burning, he had trouble breathing but he couldn't stop himself from laughing at the irony and sheer unfairness of the situation.

"You ain't very smart, friend. I guess we'll have to fix that."

Suddenly the urge to laugh sank away as the guy pulled out a picture of his wife.

"Leave her out of this," he yelled but it was too late.

His mind raced as they stuffed him in the trunk of the car and drove him away.

He knew exactly where they were when they pulled him out of the trunk. He didn't know whether it was the beating or the way they'd tried to drown him, but he felt like everything was going in slow motion.

He tried to fight, to get himself free from his restraints but they'd tightened them to the point that his skin felt like it was burning.

This had all been about him. He'd been the target. The mob had gone out of its way to get rid of him but he had no idea why.

They dragged him up into his apartment. Harley was fighting against the men who were trying to hold her down, screaming and yelling to let go of her.

He would've thought someone would have called the police, but J got the feeling the cops wouldn't come even if someone did call.

"NO! No, don't you touch her!" he yelled and she turned to him, her baby blue eyes wide in terror.

They forced him to watch as they killed her. A part of him registered that they could have done much worse to her but it was a faded voice in the back of his mind.

The only thing that registered properly was the scream; the wild, chaotic scream as he got free and ran to her, holding her in his arms.

She was lying there lifeless, blood and tears streaking her face and something in him broke.

Dead. She was dead.

They were dead.

He screamed, over and over again in agony and rage.

His wife, his son.

The only two things that had ever mattered.

The things that made him feel human.

Gone.

Stolen, taken.

He barely felt them lift him up from her body, the red of her blood mixing with the color of his clothes. The more he let it sink in, the worse it felt.

It was as if they'd taken an axe and split his head open, rearranging his brain into millions of pieces.

She was dead. They'd killed her. They'd taken her away from him.

His reason, his purpose, his everything.

They threw him back in the trunk and he didn't stop screaming but it wasn't out of fear for himself.

He felt no fear, only agony and misery.

He wanted it to go away, wanted it to stop.

He couldn't think straight, he couldn't focus on anything but the thought of her lying on the ground.

All he wanted to do was forget.

 _No, no, no, no, no!_

Forget, he needed to forget. It was too painful, too much.

He wanted to die. He didn't want to exist anymore, not without her. Not without his girl, without her there was no life.

He heard bits and pieces of conversation. All of it sounded like jumbled up words but he caught on that the chemicals would get rid of his body. They'd never find him.

His body went dead. He suddenly didn't care anymore.

He wanted to die.

The bubbling greenish chemicals loomed far below them as they leaned him on the edge of the platform.

"You just didn't know when to quit, did you, Jack?" the goon taunted. "This is what happens to those who don't play by the rules."

He was pushed off the edge and he was falling, falling into the nothingness, falling into the bliss of death. It's waiting arms welcoming him.

He wasn't afraid to die, not if he could see her again. Only then would he feel peace, only then would he sleep well, only then would he feel alive again.

J's eyes snapped open and he sat up in bed breathing heavily.

He frantically stared around the room but found himself in his king sized bed in his own room in the middle of the day.

He looked down to the spot next to him and found Harley fast asleep, no makeup on, her hair out of its pigtails and fanned all over the place with the pink and blue ends clashing terribly with the sheets.

A dream. He'd been dreaming.

A memory?

Maybe a bit of both, he wasn't sure anymore.

This happened sometimes. He'd dream of events of his past but they'd be warped, distorted, facts impossible to be true.

Always, always Harley replaced any woman at his side.

She haunted his past and replaced the pieces that were missing. He knew no other name, only hers but it made him miserable when he dreamed like that.

Because she was always the one who died, who was hurt.

He ran his fingers through his damp hair and lay back down on his pillow, closing his eyes for a second to compose himself.

"Puddin?" The sleepy sound of her voice forced him to look in her direction.

Her eyes were open and she still had sleep crusted in the corner of her lashes.

"Yeah, pumpkin?" he said hoarsely.

"Bad dream?" she asked, curling up to him.

He didn't answer her.

Harley wrapped an arm around his chest and laid her head on his shoulder.

"It's okay, pudding. They're just dreams," she reminded him before stretching her leg across his torso to pull him closer. "They can't hurt you."

He chuckled at the thought but he did that to cover the unease he felt as he ran through the dream again.

"Wanna talk about it?" she asked lazily.

"No," he scoffed.

"Come on, tell your doctor what you saw," she sang, still too sleepy to think about what she was saying.

"Nothing, Harley. Nothing."

She sighed and nuzzled him again.

"Okay puddin, but if you wanna talk I'm here." She placed a kiss on his chest before relaxing her body again.

He stared up at the ceiling as he felt her fall back to sleep.

He'd had that dream before. The details had changed but the main details were always the same. Maybe this was part of his old life.

Maybe he'd had a wife and a baby on the way and maybe he'd lost them both, but he couldn't remember her. He couldn't conjure up an image that wasn't Harley and when he tried to put an emotion behind the idea the only thing that came to mind was the woman in his arms right now.

He'd never admit it to her, ever if he could help it. She'd get too full of herself if he did and it would feed too much into the whole feelings thing she kept declaring, but he did love her.

He'd fallen in love with her somehow, someway she'd dug her claws into his unbeating heart and made it pump again.

He loved her and that fogged his memories so that she played the pivotal role of his leading lady.

A bad day. He'd once had a very bad day and it had changed everything.

He looked down at his lover and growled before pulling her in and closing his eyes again.

He refused to have another bad day like that, refused to have a day that would force him to want to forget.

He knew that much. Whatever his past, he'd wanted to forget it.

Not Harley. He couldn't forget Harley.

She was his everything, as sick as that was.

She made him feel... immortal.

Not just human, she made him feel like a god.

He allowed himself to drift back to sleep, using Harley's steady breathing as a focal point.

Then he was falling again but he chose to fall this time. He was not falling to forget, he was falling to retrieve.

He dove under the chemicals and reached for the one thing that mattered. His everything, his life, his reason, his purpose.

She was in his arms and she was safe, alive and mirroring him, part of him.

Shattered and remade just like he was.

Like they were made for each other and her smile made the shadows go away, the obsessions, the pain, the uncertainty.

She was his and that was all that mattered in his dreams.

"Mine."

A/N So sorry there hasn't been any updates, life has been crazy. I'm in the middle of job hunting right now and that's sort of taken up a lot of my time and thoughts. Also Nia got sick but hopefully this is a sort of tide over. Chaos is almost finished and I'll send it to her for editing. so this story wouldn't leave me alone, I've been doing a lot of research into the Joker in the comics and his origins keep popping up with these massive puzzle pieces missing from them. This story is something I think that might happen in his head from time to time. Cause in the movie you're left with a sense of wondering, how is it that Harley remembers her past and he doesn't. I figured since in his sleep, the rare time he does sleep his subconscious is in play he might have dreams like this where his reality and his past mesh together so that Harley takes over the position of his wife or girlfriend since he can't remember the other woman. If there even was another woman. One thing is always clear with J though, he has an absolute hatred of his father. Whether or not that is his own delusion or real we can't tell but I thought it'd be interesting. Hopefully you guys like it. It's set sometime before the arrest of Harley if you guys are wondering about time line wise.

Anyway, my thanks to Nia, she always makes my work look so much better with her editing. And she puts up with my random ideas lol. Anyway, love you all thank you for your patience and your support and as always I hope you enjoy.


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